Panasonic adds smartphone capabilities to new Lumix CM1 compact camera

Panasonic jumps into the mobile photography with the new Lumix CM1 phone/camera combo

Japanese company Panasonic is trying to re-enter the smartphone business after failing a couple of times in the past. Today, the company’s approach is different as Panasonic bets on excellent camera capabilities of its Lumix camera series, combining them with Android OS and typical smartphone features.

That said the new Lumix CM1 looks more like a compact camera than a smartphone and if you look the device from its front you will definitely think it’s not a phone. Fronted by a huge 1-inch sensor, the CM1 Android cameraphone is on par with Nikon 1 series and RX 100 by Sony. The device offers a lot for mobile photographers – full manual control and a ring for tweaking the focus. You take photos using a Leica lens with F/2.8 at 20MP resolution or capture videos with 4k resolution.

Inside you will find some typical high-end smartphone specs like a quad-core CPU at 2.3 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage. The screen is pretty good too, with a 1080p resolution and a conventional size of 4.7 inches across diagonals. For those who take a lot of photos and hi-def videos there is a expansion slot supporting up to 128 GB.

So far so good, but the CM1 smartphone has some disadvantages too. It’s too thick (21mm) and heavy (204gr), and the battery is just 2600 mAh which is a little small for these dimensions and camera features.

Panasonic Lumix CM1 goes on sale in Germany and France for the whooping price of 900 EUR but you should consider this device as a very capable compact camera rather than a threat to the Android smartphone community.

Source/Image Credit: The Verge